Original subtitles

If I hit here, you'll get all three cameras.

- Right? - Yeah. Yeah.

- Okay? - Yeah. Great.

- We're ready? - Yeah.

It's June 9th.

We are in an undisclosed location.

We are interrogating

Jim Osterberg,

about "The Stooges",

the greatest rock and roll band ever.

You know, uh, one of the things

that amazes me, uh

is that, um, they do not go about this

in a show business way, for instance, when somebody says

"Here's an act," and they announce the act

they may very well tune up for ten or fifteen minutes

before they ever play the first number

that they're going to play.

Uh, and the kids don't seem to mind this at all.

They, uh, they watch it all and, uh, listen to the tune up

and listen to them check the speakers.

And I think we've got some action coming up now.

Uh, we'll leave Bob Waller for the moment

and go to the stage and listen

to "Iggy and the Stooges!"

* ...TV eye on me *

* She got a TV eye *

* Oh she had a TV eye on me *

* No *

* No! *

There goes Iggy right into the crowd!

- Down! - We've lost audio on him.

Bob Waller is down in the field with the crowd.

I don't know just where, but we'll find him.

Riots in the motor city!

It was tough.

And we were stumbling and bumbling

and finally the record company didn't even

bother to have anything to do with us

but we, we had agents and different managers, uh

who tried to see if they could penetrate

the tangled web of our, of our career

and most of them dropped out in horror.

And we bumbled around America playing raggedly.

We started lookin', uh, dirtier and dirtier

and skinnier and skinnier

and more and more used.

And we were getting worse and worse.

We're sinkin' fast into semi-oblivious gigs.

Some people still liked us.

Some gigs I could get it together to sing

some I couldn't.

Some gigs, I, we'd show up on time

some we didn't.

Up-upsetting people

usually because of me, wherever we went.

* Butt fuckers *

* Cock suckers *

* Wanna bang suck and run my world **

The band was really deteriorating

very rapidly at that point.

So we went out and played some gigs and stuff

but all kinds of stuff happened.

I mean, we had to play a job

with Steve Mackay on drums.

Which is really wild because, you know

Steve said he could play drums, but he couldn't.

And s-so, so, we..

We needed the money so bad

we just let him play.

Oh, you want me to tell that story?

Iggy would call a song and start doing it

and I'd start doing a beat.

And he'd come back and grab

the sticks out of my hand

and go over to the floor tom

and he would beat the beat out.

And then I would know what the beat was

and then I'd finish the song.

And he did that with every single song.

And the crowd's throwing bottles at him

and they're saying, "Come on, Iggy

"let's see you puke, motherfucker!

Ah, fuck you, fuck you."

And, like, you know, givin' him all the abuse.

Thank you very much to the person

who threw this glass bottle at my head.

Nearly killed me, but you missed again

so you have to keep trying next week.

Leading up to the Michigan Palace job

was, was, what I referred to it as a death march.

So they decided to book us

in a little club outside of Detroit

uh, called The Rock and Roll Farm.

Turns out it's a biker bar.

Here comes Iggy, out in the audience

confronting people in-the, uh-as only Iggy can do.

And he comes up to one guy

and the guy just hauls off

and just cold-cocks him.

Just, kaboom!

I don't know how many of you

saw us back in 1967

when we first started, you know

but it isn't too, it isn't too easy being

"The Stooges" sometimes, you know?

Yeah!

You know, after that gig

nobody had to say anything.

It was just, like, everybody had had it.

I mean, we couldn't make a living.

People were throwing shit at us all the time

and everybody was just tired of it.

And so, so, uh..

The-the brothers moved back to Detroit.

Jim never came to me and said it's over.

I just figured it out myself.

Well, here I am sleepin' on the floor

I guess it's over. I was basically homeless.

I had a drum set.

I sold it and bought a one way ticket to Detroit.

Ended up going over to mom's house

and said, "Mom, I'm homeless

I'm broke, I'm hungry."

When the demise of "The Stooges" occurred

it wasn't really a surprise.

And it goes back to that full circle of, like

go home, you know, to mom.

After my brothers came home

I remember feeling relieved

and glad.

It was like, phew. You know?

They're safe. That was the main thing.

That they came home safe

and they were still alive, you know?

That's when I went home to my parents' trailer.

I was 24.

And, um..

The group had a... uh

a-sp, a sort of a sputtering demise.

"Gimme Danger, Little Stranger."

* Oh give me danger little stranger *

* And I'll give you a piece *

* Gimme danger little stranger *

* And I'll feel your disease *

* There's nothing in my dreams *

* Just some ugly memories *

* Kiss me like the ocean breeze *

* Hey *

* Oh *

* Now if you will be my lover *

* Well I will shiver insane *

When I was about five

we got a TV, and I'd watch "Howdy Doody."

Buffalo Bob was basically like

uh, Timothy Leary for little kids on TV.

How do you feel long about the middle

of the morning, Clarabell?

Not so good, little dragged down, huh?

Well, then, Clarabell

what you should have is Ovaltine!

And I remember the sound of the peanut gallery.

Wa-a-ah!

They had, uh, characters

like Clarabell the Clown, you know

and Clarabell the Clown might do anything.

You didn't know what he was gonna do

and that just fascinated me.

But the big-big one, it was "Soupy Sales."

It was called "Lunchtime With Soupy."

He encouraged kids to write to him

but he said, "Always when you write the letter

please, twenty-five words or less."

...where'd you learn to sing like that?

At my speech class.

- At your sh.. At your... - That's right, Bobby.

At your spee.. Who is your teacher?

And that always stuck with me.

And when I wanted to start writing songs for our group

I thought, "This is the way to go

"try to make it twenty-five words

different words or less."

I didn't feel like I was Bob Dylan

blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, you know?

And, uh, I thought "Keep it really short,

and none of it will be

the wrong thing."

* But no fun *

* My babe *

* No fun *

Yeah, heh, I saw the movie with my parents.

And it felt great that we had the same trailer.

Inside, most of the lighting fixtures

and part of the furnishings were built-in.

I had a little bedroom.

It was maybe, four or five feet wide

by about nine feet long.

There's room for a little palette

and a little mini desk.

So, the only place I could set up my drums

was in the living room.

All weekend long

and every night after school

my, my drum set took up the entire living room.

I had a lot of energy, I'd beat for hours.

Beat, bam, bam, bam, and I'm..

The whole place is shakin'.

They never complained

but what they finally did do

was after about a year of that

they just gave me the master bedroom.

At the time I thought, "Wow, this is great!"

but now I realize, also it was probably a..

Probably a comparable lesser of two tortures.

And they moved a..

They-they moved a standard sized bed

into the small room.

No desk, just-just enough so they could

get in and out of bed.

And I had a...

...single bed and my drum set

set up all the time in the master bedroom.

I was so lucky...

...to live at close quarters

in a simple environment with my parents.

I got to know my parents.

Uh, that's a..

That's a real treasure.

I remember dumping my Tinker toys

and my Lincoln Logs when I was a little boy

and pickin' up the wood bits.

And I would make a drum out of the cylinder and beat on it.

And then, when I was in the fourth grade

they took us to the River Rouge assembly plant

of the Ford Motor Company.

And they had a machine that engineered

a controlled drop of a piece of metal

onto a stamping plate.

And every time that thing hit the stamping plate

it made... this racket, this..

A-a-a mega-clang.

And, uh, I-I liked the mega-clang.

* I walk today *

* Past some old time *

I had a high school band, "The Iguanas."

We got a job playin' full-time at a teen club.

A place called The Ponytail.

I kept scheming, thinking of things

to get more attention and, uh, so I thought

"What if I played on the biggest drum riser

that anybody has ever had?"

I was about 16 feet up.

All by myself, you know

and the, and the band is down there grumbling.

A loser in the biz named Chuck

approached me and he said

"Well, I think you guys are pretty good

"I'd like to be your manager

and I'll help you promote your own gigs."

So we rented a pier for one night

to throw our own concert.

And we had a huge turnout, a huge success.

Until half-way through the floor started to give.

Nobody got hurt but basically, we, we broke the pier.

That was the end of the self promotion.

I was "The Iguanas" during high school

and straight out of high school

then a semester in college.

Then I dropped out of college

and was looking out for somebody to give me a job.

And the "Prime Movers" were these school dropout

older guys.

And they knew

about all sorts of blues music.

Butterfield's band came through town

and the "Prime Movers" tried to establish a connection

to see if our group could get some work through them.

I asked, uh, Jerome Arnold

the bass player in Butterfield at the time

if he had any tips for me and my playing

and he said, "When you play, you play it like you mean it."

I was getting fairly good

and, um, at some point I lost

respect for or faith in the group.

And I thought it wasn't really itself.

So I decided to go where the real,

real people were doing the real deal.

Different. Not like white America.

I sat in with a couple of guys and, uh, actually got paid

ten bucks a couple of times to do very unimportant gigs.

Once with a guy named Johnny Young

and once with Big Walter Horton

when they had to go out and play for white people.

And, uh, and it was a thrill for me and I learned a lot.

It was more relaxed.

They knew how to have a good time.

And the music was... very definite.

I saw a little glimpse of a deeper life of people

who in their adulthood had not lost their childhood.

I smoked a big joint one day by the river

and realized that I was not black.

I thought I would like to do

for our generation

what the good black players

that I loved were doing for theirs.

Eventually, I just got tired of looking

at somebody's butt all the time.

That's your-that's, that's your curse.

The best butt I ever played

the two best butts I ever played behind

were Abdul Fakir, in "The Four Tops."

He was the Four Top that would unify

the other in their, in their dance steps.

He was, he was like a ba-large bird.

And the other one was Mary Weiss

from "The Shangri-Las."

Wonderful body and face.

Delicious, creamy, female dream thing.

* He don't hang around *

* With the gang no more *

I realized drumming wasn't what I wanted to do

so I decided to go back to Ann Arbor

but I needed a ride home.

So I called Ron

and somehow Scott Richardson had a car

and, uh, I did talk Ron into working with me.

* 'Cause I know that he did it for me *

* Can't you see * And I can see *

* It's still in the streets *

* His heart is out in the street **

Ron Asheton was a musician.

He was one of the few people that had longer hair than me.

He was playing bass occasionally with a band

called "The Chosen Few"

and I really like his style on bass.

I met his brother, Scott, later

when I was working at Discount Records.

Across the street, there was a drugstore

called Marshall's.

And Scott and a couple of guys

hung out inside this drugstore doing nothing.

One young tough and his friends.

Now Scott looked like Elvis.

Good-looking, athletic-looking

indirect, uncommunicative kid.

Scott left school after the ninth grade.

I think he would put it to somebody and that was that.

He immediately began pestering me

for about a year to teach him something on the drums.

I would ask you

do you double stroke on your triplets?

Mm-hmm.

You know, I would think up things to ask you...

- Oh, I see.. Get it going. - Just, just to talk to you.

So I taught him, like, four or five beats.

Mostly, uh, Stax, Volt and Bo Diddley stuff.

My name is Scotty Asheton. I go to Garfield School.

I'm eight and a half years old.

Hmm! My name is Ronny Asheton.

I'm nine years old. My.. I go to Garfield school.

They lost their dad when, uh, I-I think Ron was 14.

And their father had been a fighter pilot in the war

and stayed in the military shortly after the war

was something we all had in common.

...two, one, zero, dive!

My dad was a World War II veteran.

On his travels, he would buy a little something

like a dagger or a medal.

And then I got interested in it.

And we started collecting.

And that was like a father and son..

We found something to bond with.

It had nothing to do with politics

or what it stood for.

That's pretty oddball that you're buying

your eight year old son Nazi stuff.

My name is Kathy Asheton.

I go to Garfield School.

I'm in second grade.

That's all, folks.

I-I was standing on our porch

and noticed this guy walking

into the neighborhood with long hair.

And so I said to Scotty, "Why don't you flag him down

and see who he is," you know?

And he whistled down Dave Alexander

who it turned out to be.

And so Scotty met him

then Ronny ended up meeting with him.

And they were the ones that gravitated more together

because of the, the commonality of their interest

in the British music.

Ron cut his senior year in school.

Dave sold his motorcycle and flew to England

and they saw "The Who" play.

They went to the Marquee Club in London

and they stayed until that money ran out.

And that's what really set me on the path.

Because when I came back, I tried to go back to school

and I just really didn't fit in.

And Ann Arbor was still frat boys.

There's not a lot of us.

And my counselor even said, "Well, why don't you just

"take the rest of the year off

and try to come back next year?"

And I'm going, "Yeah, okay."

But then going back next year, forget it.

Next year you can plan for higher success, Bill.

Yes. Thanks, Miss Evans.

Plan for higher success.

Tape is rolling, any time you're ready.

They had had the concept of a band

called "The Dirty Shames"

and that was basically something they would tell people

when they met people at a party or something.

"Yeah-yeah, we got a band, we're called "The Dirty Shames.""

There was a period when "The Stooges"

resembled "The Dirty Shames."

In that we, we decided

we had a band, we told people we had a band

but we hadn't really done any playing.

At one point, there was a trip we made to New York

and we met some attractive girls... teenagers.

Younger than us. Who said they had a band.

And we-we drove to Princeton, New Jersey

to see these girls play in a basement.

And they were just... lived with their parents.

And they were very, very good.

And they were much better than us.

At that point we, we were shamed.

We were gonna try a series of rehearsals

at Ron and Scott's house.

It was Ron who let me know

"Look, I gotta feel good playing with..

"It's-it's, uh-it's a weed thing.

That's when I'm in the mood."

I found a guy who said he would sell me

an entire marijuana plant.

So he brought it to my parents trailer.

He had this-he had this thing, al-almost four feet of it.

The roots still had dirt on 'em.

I'd seen marijuana, it didn't look like

anything I'd ever seen.

"Are you sure this is.." He said, "Yeah, yeah."

He said, "But you gotta cure it."

There was a communal laundry at the trailer park.

I put a couple quarters in the dryer

and started it up and sat there

and it started to stink.

"Oh, no!" I thought, I was really scared, but nobody came.

I went and buried the whole bag of marijuana

but when I wanted to rehearse

I'd dig it up and, uh, catch a 45-minute bus

and it would be about noon.

Usually I could get Ron up anywhere from five minutes

to a half-hour, depending on what I had to do

throw rocks, hose and, um, and with luck

we'd actually all get down in the basement

2:30 at the earliest.

But more often or not their mother

would come home just after three.

"I'm home, now shut up that racket!

I want some peace, and Osterberg's a mental!"

I was in Ann Arbor, I never saw those riots of '67

but the way I thought, must be abandoned houses

all over Detroit where we could live for free now.

So I heard about one

and I went to Detroit with a tab of Mescaline and a shovel.

And dropped the Mescaline and went in that.

I told Ron and Scott, I'm gonna make a house.

Prepare a house where we can live.

What are your building?

It's our house. Can't you tell?

Yes, but you haven't finished it.

I didn't know from roofing and plumbing and..

I didn't know from that shit, you know? But I tired.

This is where we hung out for the first time

and started being a group of people

that were going to be a band.

Any time day or night, you have an idea

get together, talk about it, play it out, work on songs.

In one of our early houses

where we never accomplished making any music

we had no discipline, the cops kept shutting us down.

We were real communists.

We were not political at all

but we were true communists.

We lived in a communal house.

We ate the same food at the same time.

We practically shared all the money pretty equally.

When we began to write songs... happily

since we were too ignorant to realize

that there was intellectual property.

We shared authorship.

Michigan was a key c-crossroads

between San Francisco and New York.

And it was where everybody stopped on the way

if they were gonna bother to stop at all

in the flyover country.

It was Ann Arbor.

I had actually heard a little bit

or read a little bit

either by or about these people.

I had everything, every sort of record in the record store.

I was the Stooge who knew who John Cage was

or knew Sun Ra, Carl Orff, "The Ventures," Pharaoh Sanders

Wailers, Duane Eddy, Link Wray, "The Velvet Underground."

"A Love Supreme" by John Coltrane.

We role-played a lot, and listened to a lot of music

and one thing we would do was get really stoned

on either marijuana or LSD.

Turn off all the lights and we'd put on Harry Partch.

All these sounds..

Harry Partch was huge for me.

You know, it was the idea that he hoboed

he bohemed, he created his own instruments.

I like to think of w-what I'm doing

as visual and corporeal

and, uh, I-I want the instruments on stage

and I want them to be beautiful.

I also want the, the, uh, musicians

to be a-an active part

a, a very active part in the, the whole production.

I was making instruments

while we played primitive riffs.

We'd-we'd find an extremely simple theme

and play it over and over.

Then take a rest, and play another one.

Scott has in the basement my old set of drums.

And then he also had the big thing was oil drums.

He was beating on oil drums with mallets.

Ron had his bass and an amp.

Just let a feeling come over you

just kinda go with this great sound that we're making.

A-and sometimes something would pop in my head

sometimes, I, to get a sound

I would just hammer on my guitar.

They had this lap steel and just tuned

every string beat to the same note, to the E.

Sounded like an airplane taking off.

We had a blender around.

And the Jim-O-Phone, it was a cone.

It had an opening about four inches

or five inches across at the top.

As soon as you drop the mic into the opening, you'll get..

You lower it a little bit and it'll just go..

And it even goes down octaves until you get..

Dave, he operated some of these instruments.

One of the first things I used to love to do

with a mic, I would inhale..

And you listen to "Asthma Attack."

That's good free-form music.

One night, we'd been up all night on LSD.

We were all in Ron's room and I-I said

"What about a name for our band?"

Ron just said, "Well, let's just call it "The Stooges"

"'cause we don't do anything wrong

"but everybody's picking on us.

But we'll be "The Psychedelic Stooges.""

Here's a bunch of guys that couldn't even play.

And they're playing the Grande Ballroom.

And the audience is just mesmerized.

You know, Iggy's in white face playing his vacuum cleaner.

I wore white face

and I had an aluminum Afro wig.

I was wearing a maternity smock

and then events would happen.

Like we would throw things and make a noise.

I would throw a pie.

I actually tired to get the group...

...to work out a cover song.

What's simple enough for the group to play

simple enough for me to sing, and has a good beat?

And I-I-I, this was a terrible experiment

but we tried "She Cried" by "Jay and the Americans."

* And when I told her *

* I didn't love her anymore *

* She cried *

That was as far as we could ever get.

It sounded great. I would, I'd do it right now.

There was a particular rehearsal

where I just handed Ron a guitar and I just said

"You do it, I'm not that good at the music part."

And Dave moved over on bass.

Our manager came home

and I improvised an angry song

and began again.

I-I had no way to express my anger to this guy

who I never liked so much.

I just started jumping up and down

like, kinda the way chimps or baboons do

before they're gonna fight.

Like that, and as soon as I started doing that

poof, up went the Asheton's.

* All night *

* Till I blow *

* Away *

* I feel alright *

* I feel alright *

That was the first time I ever saw those two guys...

...powerfully motivated by something

that wasn't an imitation of somebody else.

Something that was their own.

In the Asheton's I found primitive man.

* So

Wooh!

* So *

Brothers and sisters, it's time to get down with it.

Brothers, it's time to testify, I want to know

are you ready to testify?

Are you ready?

I give you a testimonial!

The "MC5."

* Hey love is like a Ramblin' Rose *

Fred Smith was dating Kathy Asheton.

Scott and I and Ron went with Kathy

to see "MC5" when they were still a cover band.

Lot of attitude, they had the look down

they were doing British influenced R and B

rock and soul.

I remember a night when the three of us

drove into Detroit to see if we could talk

about getting some opening slots.

And they had a practice space with a big thick door

and Scott and Ron and I stood there in the freezing cold

listening through the door

to "Kick Out The Jams" coming through like..

It was simple and then, uh-wow, so powerful.

We should get some of that.

And we would play with them for nothing in church basements

youth centers, and we would open some of their shows

at the Ballroom.

We joined their circus in many ways.

The Five were bigger time commies than we were.

The big poohbah of the area was John Sinclair.

Total assault on the culture by any means necessary

including rock and roll, dope, and fucking in the streets.

We believe that the... general, uh, social structure...

...of the Western world is crumbling.

And, uh, that, that now is the time to increase

the assault on this culture, and, uh..

Under Sinclair's cloud of mega-organization

began to branch into, first, there was the "MC5" commune

and then there was Trans-love Energies.

And then they were becoming more political

and they wanted to be like Black Panthers

and they started this W-White Panther party

which was, which was honestly, it was just ridiculous.

We tried to avoid that.

We tried to avoid everything.

I guess that was why you, you kept hearing

the word "Nihilist" about us.

But finally, at one point, John put his foot down.

And he wanted us to accompany the Five to play

at the democratic convention

in Chicago in '68 that culminated

in bloody rioting.

* Well I'm sittin' all alone.. **

And I didn't want to.

There was a, you're either with us or against us, moment

there and I-I wasn't going for it.

I still didn't say anything.

I started somersaulting around the room.

That was my reaction.

I-I couldn't think of any.. I don't know, I don't know.

Oh, well, you know, I don't know why.

But I just, I couldn't say no.

And I wasn't gonna say yes.

So finally he just left the room.

I-I remember that moment.

That wasn't who we were, and that would have come out.

Not long after that, we were playing in

the student union in Michigan

when a record scout was coming to see them.

He was, it was recommended by Wayne Kramer

"You should check out our little brother band."

This was Wayne Kramer, I'll never forget this.

He said, "You know, you'll like us, but I think if you like us

"there's, we have a little brother band

you will really like them."

Well, he was prescient in his.. I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, who?"

It was "Iggy And The Stooges."

They were, I said, "Well, when can I see them?"

He said, "They're playing this afternoon.

On the campus at the University of Michigan."

I went across the street, and up the stairs

and heard this incredible music

just booming in the hallways.

I said, "Ah, this is so great."

And I was, I was pulled by the music.

People ask me, "When did you first see Iggy?"

But I didn't. I heard them before I saw them.

Then I saw Iggy, he was the front man.

I thought, "This is just perfection."

We used to get those big amps crankin

and this room just rang.

It was like the-the sound just bounced

you can hear it from this.

Just imagine Marshall stacks at ten.

This is, uh, where we were discovered by Danny Fields.

We got done playing, this is the same stage.

Place was packed, you know, imagine the late

this was late sixties. Like 1968.

He was a PR for Elektra Records.

So we get off stage and he goes, uh

"How would you guys like to be, uh, stars?"

"Oh, yeah. Right, sure.

Throw this guy out." And he was serious.

I'm just gonna call the president

of Elektra Records, and I said

"I just saw two great bands.

"The one band is really popular around here

"they have a following

"they play to two, three thousand people.

And the other band is a little early stages of development."

Jac just said, "See if the big band will take twenty thousand

and the little band will take five."

Both bands signed on that day

it was the weekend of September 22nd, 1968.

Show biz is not a friendly place

and I gotta say, of all the people

that ever extended a hand to our group

the "MC5" were probably the most genuine about it.

As soon as we got signed, we started feeling

more professional.

I think we realized we didn't need to be

"The Psychedelic Stooges."

We'll just be "The Stooges."

So Ron actually called up Moe Howard

to see if it would be okay.

That was Ron's finest hour, when he came up over

the next months with two great riffs.

Uh, "Wanna Be Your Dog," and "No Fun."

So for a while we just went out and played it

and-and I remember on both that one

and "No Fun," the members of the "MC5" raising an eyebrow

and going, "Uh, you got a good riff there."

We-we loved it. We loved it.

Every, all, the whole group loved New York.

There were things in that environment

that didn't really exist for a young person in the Midwest.

* In my room I want you here **

I'd been listening to one of Velvet's records.

It's just very, very good.

An-and it was simple.

And the simplicity, and some of the droning

and some of the moods

had a big influence on us, you know?

So when they suggested John Cale, we thought

it was perfect for us.

That record... wouldn't have felt the same

if we hadn't brought it to New York

and played it for that person.

We preformed for him.

I-I remember that he

wore a big black cape

like Z-Man in "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

He brought Nico in a few times.

It really looked like, uh, Morticia and Gomez.

Ready.

When we recorded the record.

They couldn't get a decent band track

of the band unless I danced.

I would stand in the band room with them

just with no mic or anything

and just dance and jump around

and roll around.

Do whatever I had to do to get a take.

The studio was, was a tiny little room

above a peep show on Times Square

but it was an R and B studio run by Jerry Ragovoy

with tiny little amplifiers.

And then we came in with our Marshall stacks

and everybody freaked out.

The host engineer started saying

"But Jerry Ragovoy does it this way."

"I don't care about Jerry Ragovoy.

You know, you don't understand."

Cale finally got us to turn our amps to nine.

That was the compromise.

* You took my arm *

* And you broke my.. *

We had four songs.

"Dog." "Fun." "69." and "Ann."

And the idea was, each song had a song part

that lasted about two minutes.

And then there'd be about ten minutes of improv on the riff.

When we heard it back taped, I thought

these songs are great, for the first three minutes

this is good.

And then after the three minutes, I started thinking

I don't know if this is really

so great to listen to at minute seven here.

But I didn't say anything.

And-and then it took the very sensible

record store owner in business, Jac Holzman.

No, no, no, no.

He said, "I can't put this out.

There's not enough songs."

And you know, I-I knew he was right.

Oh, we got a lot more songs, just, uh, give

book us another session.

* She *

* Not right *

* I want something *

* I want something tonight *

Half or more of the songs

were written in the Chelsea Hotel.

The day before we went into the studio

and the song, "Not Right,"

we had never played.

The first time we'd ever played it

that was it, that was the take.

* It's always *

* Well it's always this way *

Shree Ram..

Dave Alexander,

he said...

..."Why don't we do something with an Om chant?"

I don't know if it was Ron or me, but one of us

melodicized the chant and then made it..

Om...

...Shree Ram...

...Ja.

Ram, ja, ja, Ram..

* Tonight.. *

If we didn't have that song on that album

we-we would have had just a bunch of similar

rock tracks in the party line.

Ram, cha, cha, Ram..

* I hold myself tight *

Shree Ram..

It did make a statement that

we weren't like the other bands.

...cha, cha, Ram.

* I won't fight *

Dave changed our history.

* I won't fight *

Ram, cha, cha..

That record, I thought it was a..

...myself that it was a...

...sort of neat, petite, well-organized

good, sharp, little poke, and, uh..

I was, I was real proud of the, uh

the clarity of the songs.

* Midnight winds are landing at the end of time *

Nico's the most culturally and artistically knowledgeable

beautiful woman that I'd ever met.

She's ten years older than me

and she had an opinion about almost everything

that had to do with the arts, and I listened to her.

Now I began being influenced, probably got a little crazier.

She stayed a couple of weeks, I think.

They hated having a girl in the house.

And at first we resented her being there.

It's like.. Dammit!

And they pretty much kept to themselves

so there's no hanging out...

...and then the worst was, uh...

...bringing her in the practice room.

No women or girlfriends in the practice room.

She'd sit there..

...watch, and she'd critique it, you know.

"This one is very good."

I-I think she was on the rebound

maybe from something with Lou Reed, perhaps

so she'd, she'd usually get in a dig at Lou

whenever she liked something I was doing, she'd say

"You, you are much better

you are much more talented than Lou."

So we just started hanging out and, uh

gave her a break because she was

an interesting, good person.

And we went and played that material

at the World's Fair Pavilion...

...in Queens, near where the Ramones grew up...

...as, as an opening act to Joe Cocker.

Well, you know, Joe Cocker's singing, uh..

* You are so beautiful.. *

And everybody's...

...going nuts. You know, this is it, and then we're like..

And just..

In the 50's...

...they figured out how to suck the life out of rock and roll

on the one hand they replace Elvis with Fabian

and then also at the same time

we'll run out Perry Como on 'em.

This was happening again.

Rock and roll at the time was being co-opted

by a political-industrial complex of corrupt performers

and evil manager-owners, who were going to create

whatever they thought was the best product for them.

Whether you want it or not

we're gonna shove this down your little throats.

They rejected their own country and their own people.

It's a, it's cultural treason.

There was more "American Idol."

More of the corny talent show

suggested to the American audience at that time than, uh

than people like to admit.

It was all, you know..

* Marrakesh Express *

* Wouldn't you know we're riding *

* On the Marrakesh Express.. *

I mean, somebody needs to say, you know

some of the biggest peace-love acts

of the California, uh

five years of love, umm...

...were created in m-meetings.

And stuff... smells.

I say it s-still smells.

We crossed the Mississippi

for the first time in, uh, 1970

to record Fun House and

every day, around noon

we would all go into the studio and, uh, record for the day.

Each day was always, it was

this is the day of loose

and that's all we were gonna do that day.

And there was the day of

down on the street, et cetera, et cetera.

And then a couple of days mixing.

It was under two weeks.

We were experimenting after "The Stooges"

with more aggressive music, with more space

a la Bitches Brew by Miles Davis

we hoped...

...and everything that James Brown was doing

with Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker.

And I saw Steve playing with his band "The Carnal Kitchen."

Oh, my God, this guy can really blow a horn.

He had "1970" and "Fun House" already written

just waiting for me.

And we got to "Fun House" and he said

"Play like Maceo Parker on acid."

And we did some interesting things with space.

Things like, uh, very minimal...

...drum, uh

four-four drum beats

but with, uh, syncopations on the top.

And double tracking leads sometimes

but with no rhythm guitar.

That's not usually done in rock and roll

it's not very.. It's supposed to be very commercial.

Elektra studio was just marvelous.

It was just one room, there were no choices.

It was intimate, but big enough

that you could spread things a little bit.

It had a, it had a nice throw rug.

I was using my own PA stack in there.

I didn't want the studio-made sound

that the vocals had on the first album.

- Would you like a music stand? - Say what?

- Would you like a music stand? - No, that's okay.

Ron says he needs the bass up again.

He-he turned it up.

We got the red lights, anytime you're ready.

We were housed in the Tropicana Motel.

And Warhol had the d-door to his room ajar one day

I went in to say hi.

He suggested, he said, "Why don't you do some songs..

"Just sing the newspaper.

Just sing what it says in the newspaper."

I haven't gotten around to it yet but

that was his, that was his idea.

While we stayed there, the suite next to mine

it was occupied by Ed Sanders

who was writing "The Family."

I was, int.. Always interested in new looks, too.

There was a pet store catered to dogs

called The Bowser Boutique

down the street on Santa Monica and I walked by one day...

And I saw this red dog collar and I thought..

"I would look so cool if I had that dog collar," right?

So I bought the dog collar

and I started wearing it every day

to go to the studio, and Ed Sanders would

look at me and he'd say..

"You don't know what that means, do you?"

You know, I still, I-I still don't know what it means!

- You know, but he was like.. - It was cool.

One day, I was out for a walk

and I was walking in the opposite direction

from the Tropicana.

It was on, uh, Santa Monica

I think it was the corner of Westmont

and a black caddy came tearing assin' down, down the hill..

He had to slam on the brakes

because I was stepping off the curb. I..

He looked at me and he says, I was sure it was John Wayne.

"Goddamn it!"

I haven't lost my temper in 40 years

but, Pilgrim, you caused a lot of trouble this morning

mighta got somebody killed.

And then he swerved

he swerved around me

and sped off in the

general direction of Dan Tana's.

And here's the world-famous Whisky A Go-Go on the strip.

A favorite dancing spot for both the mods and

movie stars who want to get it on.

Let's drop in and see what's happening tonight.

It was really a California experience

and then to pay for it, we were bidden to do two

two nights at the Whiskey.

And the Whiskey a Go-Go in LA

and two nights in San Francisco at the Fillmore.

Which freaked everybody out.

Every time, every place we played...

Nobody had ever seen anything like

what we did, you know..

* I took a record of pretty music *

* Now I'm putting it to you straight from hell *

Upon our return to the Midwest

we were playing larger festivals...

...larger events and we were getting

pretty good life because the stuff on Fun House

was pretty damn rocking live.

* I feel fine to be dancin', baby *

* I feel fine I'm a shakin' leaf *

* I feel fine to be dancin', baby **

Festivals that, that became bigger and where we..

Where we were stating to get more notice

happened in the summer of '70

after we completed Fun House

and, uh, and we would generally go out

and a-a-as people often do, play that whole work

and we were pretty much ignoring the stuff from the first album.

And, uh, I remembered

I read a q-quote from Johnny Ramone once

he went to see us and apparently there were too many new songs

that he didn't know and he was disgusted.

Since we broke away for our message

Iggy has been in the crowd

and out again three different times.

They seem to be enjoying it and so does he.

The group was always very aware

of the theatrics of the moment.

And they never moved, ever.

In 40 minutes, the drummer would never look up

and, uh, the other two might move a foot or two.

We never knew what would happen

and so, in the old days, you know

we just literally, I mean, it could be

we'd be out there, you know..

You know, and there's no vocals.

You know, the guy's out in the crowd.

He's down on the floor somewhere, you know

there's no vocal, so we're still going..

So until he starts singing, we don't do anything.

And, uh, and then, you know eventually he'll climb back up

and start singing and that's, you know

it's all about, you know, working together

to, to make a show.

You know, the way he works a gig

it reminds you that life, big time, is in the moment.

M-maybe most of it.

But the moment is really intense about

what's going down because

you know, "I feel like a short-order cook.

"I gotta get everybody's order.

You want fries? You want a shake?"

You know, he's going out, in his mind

he says, he's going to the crowd.

It was important to make contact

I felt at every show.

And we were opening for "The Mothers of Invention"

that was the best group, in my estimation

that we'd ever opened for.

So, near the end of our set

I was not sure we'd really reached across.

And there were a couple of girls, big ones.

They'd moved up right in front of the stage

and they just were laying there on their backs

making themselves very comfortable, relaxing.

And I got to the edge of the stage

and I did what I'd seen little kids do

sometimes when they want attention from their parents.

I thought, I'm just gonna fall forward

they'll catch me, and, uh

they moved. I..

My, uh, my front teeth which I've since had repaired

went straight through one of my lips.

Sometimes it was eventful, sometimes it was, listen..

I-I-I was a guy, very young, in a rock band

and having beautiful summers in the Midwest.

So, so-sometimes I'd just go down there, and, you know

see some chick and go, "Hey, what's your number?"

You will come to me whenever I call you...

...and I will enjoy that very much.

I had seen a lot of pictures

of the, the Pharaohs and, um

and some of their a-atttendants.

Egyptian iconography I guess you'd call it.

And it impressed me that the Pharaohs

seldom wore shirts.

Here in a minute

end of all these announcements we're gonna...

...we're gonna have a big ceremony

and we're gonna plant the seeds

and then we're gonna light the joint and celebrate.

* Hey hey mama tell you now *

* I was gonna die.. *

That particular festival

came along at a time

when all the different free-love

free-wheeling, free-roaming social groups in Detroit

were all starting to sizzle up

in the frying pan of drugs.

We all got so stoned.

I was in a tent with some wild people

and I took so much of

what I thought was coke

before the thing that I had amnesia

accompanied by

a vertical malfunction with my vision.

Like the sort of thing that used to happen

with televisions of that era when the picture

would keep flipping over and over.

Couldn't remember who I was

and then finally I remembered there was something

I had to do.

* Out of my mind on Saturday night *

* 1970 rollin' in sight *

Dave, he just went all the way out that night.

He got extremely drunk before the show

and he couldn't play the songs.

One of the road crew went out

and turned his volume all the way off on his amp

and he kept playing he didn't even realize

that his amp wasn't on.

We had a good billing

Danny had brought important people

from New York to see us.

We were on the same bill with, uh, Rod Stewart and the "Faces"

we wanted to do well, we got out there

there's no bass.

So, I was extra aggressive.

I did try to get to the fence.

Um, I was prevented.

There was an actual trench dug

and there were horse police.

And so I started calling, "Come on!

Tear that fence."

I think I mentioned "Tear the fence down."

Lead Stooge is freaked out.

I think the fence took a couple of hits.

He jumped over the fence

and we've lost power on the amp.

I don't remember being arrested.

I remember just sitting after the gig, really like

still whacked out, and watching Ronnie Wood

and Rod Stewart drinking Mateus

to get ready for their show.

That was their, uh, intoxicant of choice.

Iggy fired him, but not really

cause Dave wanted to be let go.

Yeah, I felt bad but, um...

...I also felt there's no sense in having someone in the band

that's not serious, who doesn't really want to be in the band.

We remained friends after.

* Damn *

His parents called me up, said he was in the hospital.

What it was was an inflamed pancreas

which he could have survived

but they had an IV in him...

...and he wanted it out, and he wanted to go home

and he wanted a beer.

So they sedated him to a point

to where he was unconscious

and when he was unconscious, he got pneumonia

and the pneumonia killed him.

He'd recorded two albums

he, um, became to be in a

famous rock and roll band.

He had accomplished what he wanted to do.

He was ready to go.

* ...do you feel it? *

* Said do you feel it when you touch me? *

* And do you feel it when you touch me? *

* There's a fire *

* There's a fire *

* Oh it's just a dreaming *

* I just wanna be dreaming *

I'd been using psychedelics.

They were probably cut with a lot of speed.

God, no! No! No! No!

I began to have problems controlling my nerves.

Get me out of this terrible place!

That was about the time that one guy

who lived in our house, a guy named John Adams

didn't have much to do in his life..

Here. Lookey here.

Decided he wanted to take up

an old heroin addiction.

- What's H? - Shh! Not so loud.

And uh... I fell into that.

As did other members of the group.

Everything just decayed.

And to see those guys

just to see everyone hit rock bottom

to see your whole world crumble

when it's not really your fault.

And I never did it, and never wanted to.

Aside from us just being flat out unreliable

uh, we, we had Scotty Asheton

was driving the equipment truck one day.

It's like a-a bridge with whatever, ten feet or

eleven feet clearance, and truck's twelve feet, you know?

That's the metaphor of the early Stooges, that's it.

The van's destroyed

the instruments that they rented are destroyed.

The bridge is destroyed.

They were victims of their own, um...

...lack of professionalism.

* Down on the street where the faces shine *

But they were also the victims of other forces

that we could call anti-art.

"The Stooges" record Fun House

so we're at the point where Elektra has to decide

whether or not to pick up the option for a third album.

William S. Harvey and I went out to Ann Arbor

went to Stooge Hall, and they played

what were the songs

that were going to be their new songs

and I just thought "Yes.

"The music is what I loved

and there's more of it."

They were accelerating from where they started

they were better, but that made no difference to him.

And we got into our rental car

went back to the hotel, we got in the elevator and..

"So, Bill, what'd you think?"

And he said "I didn't hear a thing."

Got out of the elevator, the elevator door closed

I called them up, and I said "You're being dropped."

"I didn't hear a thing."

That says it all.

They didn't hear a thing from day one.

They had the world's greatest band sitting there

they didn't hear a thing.

And that's kind of what the world said.

I don't think they formally dropped me, but they said

"Look here's a, here's a Nikon camera, as a gift.

Go away for awhile."

And so I scurried off to clean up

and shut down the band for a while.

My parents were very friendly with a pharmacist

who completely illegally, without a prescription

ordered, uh, a bottle

of liquid methadone

for my exclusive daily use.

This was a few miles, couple of miles from our trailer

on the edge-edge of Ann Arbor.

And I would usually walk

in the morning over there

to take a small dose

that he would personally give me

from this family pharmacist.

I got to the point, I could go a few days

without anything.

And that was when I... went to New York.

Iggy and I were sitting on my bed

we'd fallen asleep to some black and white Western

and Lisa called me and she said

"Oh, is-is Iggy with you?" I said, "Oh yeah."

She said "Well, I'm with David Bowie, we're at Max's

he really wants to meet Iggy."

I went down there and met this

th-this manager, Tony Defries.

I met David, who was... cool.

They were going back to England, I went back to Detroit

and there an, there was an understanding

that at a later date

um, they would arrange, uh, for me to go to London

and make some sort of a recording.

They had somehow and someway signed me to something

and, uh, using that in turn, uh

uh, s-signed a deal whereby they got some money

from Columbia for my services.

Like that chick Pebbles that signed up TLC

or, uh, Lou Pearlman with the boy band "NSYNC."

It was one of those contracts.

It was in-insane work demands

uh, ridiculous splits of money. Uh..

I didn't really understand...

...who owned what, with who I, with whom I was signed.

I was in the big bad world now, I was not..

I-I-I was not the, uh, uh..

I wasn-I wasn't a teenage communist anymore.

This fella, Tony Defries, what I thought

was gonna be an effective, and was an effective flamboyant

theatrical management style

based on Colonel Tom Parker

with the big cigar

big Afro hair, and a great big mink coat.

But in the interim I decided

I wanted to re-retain my Detroit identity

and, uh, told them in advance

"You gotta bring James Williamson with me."

* Alright *

* Whoo *

I guess he was trying to capture the attitude

that I had, which I did have quite a bit of attitude

when I first started, uh, out.

You know, I didn't really have any framework for anything

I was, what? You know, not even twenty years old yet.

And I, um, I didn't have any skills.

And so, all I could do was play the guitar.

I went from living

on my sisters couch

literally, to getting a phone call from Ig and saying

"You know, tomorrow, we have a plane ticket for you

and you're going to London." Right?

And so I-I just, I-I

I got my guitar and I left

and my sister didn't even know where I was.

You know, I mean, my girlfriend called and-and she goes

"Well, I don't know where he is" and-and the girl goes

"Well, is his guitar there?"

And she said, "No" And she goes

"Alright, he's gone."

So James and I got to Heathrow, and, uh, you know

and the cops took one look at us and thought..

"Undesirable, no money. What are you doing?

"What do you mean, you think you're not going anywhere.

You're-you're going into this holding tank."

And, uh, it took us a while to contact Defries

on the phone and he came down and signed for us.

I don't think he ever really wanted us.

I think David Bowie was interested

in working with American artists

who he admired at the time.

I also think there was a bit of an American invasion planned.

Ultimately, they were hoping to probably have us produced

by David Bowie who had a parallel career in production

and he was producing Lou Reed's album around the same time.

It wasn't what I wanted to do.

I would've been polite about the, uh, backup musicians

but the-the names bandied about were people

who had already been in the "Pink Fairies."

When I investigated the "Pink Fairies"

it sorta looked to me like an amalgam

of the ideas that had already been thrashed out

by the "MC5" and Alice Cooper.

It wasn't right for us, I thought.

I talked them into, uh, bringing

two more Stooges

over from America.

* I'm hungry *

* I'm hungry *

We had a vision

and we started rehearsing in earnest

in a filthy basement, and, uh, started getting tight.

The song-writing wasn't really there yet

but the... the grooves

the, um, the force was.

Some of the songs we had already written

and brought in at that time

were "I Got A Right"

"Gimme Some Skin"

"Tight Pants."

Which later showed up as

"Shake Appeal on Raw Power."

We did some demo sessions

w-a, at a little eight track

called R.G. Jones in Wimbledon

and those were good demo sessions.

Then later...

...we did, uh, we did a little

little more formal session in

Olympic Studios with Keith Harwood

who was The Stones engineer at that time

and that's the recording of "I Got A Right"

that's become so popular, since it's

fast as lightning and kicks like a mule.

* Anytime I want I got a right to move *

* No matter what they say *

* Anytime I want I got a right to move *

* No matter what they say *

* I got a right I got a right to move *

* Anywhere I want anywhere *

It was our best effort, uh, to, to..

To make hit records, basically.

We wanted-we wanted to make a good record

um, but the, the thing about us is that

w-we're so delusional about

what is popular, you know

because all we really care about is what we like.

Sometime, I don't know if it was late fall

somebody knows.

We, uh..

We had-we had written the second batch of material

that was gonna be "Raw Power."

And eventually, they just all got busy with Bowie

and left us in the studio

cause we owed a record to CBS

and that's where "Raw Power" came out of and

and we really, you know, I-I've said this before

we were just left without any adult supervision

I mean, we just did our thing.

* I'm a street walking cheetah *

* With a heart full of napalm *

* I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb *

* I am a world's forgotten boy *

* The one who searches and destroys *

As a guitarist, James fills the space

as if somebody's just let a drug dog into your house

and it's big.

And he-he finds every corner...

...of a musical premise

and of a piece of space and time

and fills it up with detail.

It's a very detailed approach

and it's really hard to find a space to say something

that he hasn't thought of or occupied.

* Somebody gotta save my soul *

* Baby penetrates my mind *

* And I'm the world's forgotten boy *

* The one who's searchin' searchin' to destroy oh *

And so Ron plays a sort of a nimble bass style

and it really-really helps

lift James, my vocals

I had to go way up high

I'm-I'm an octave above

Fun House to find a space

that James isn't occupying.

Uh, Scott solved the problem by-by just beating

the living shit out of his drums.

* Look out honey 'cause I'm using technology **

The bass player and the drummer are

the most important thing in the band, other than the songs.

You know, when those guys were together

they were just like this unit and, you know

and it just was rock solid.

It was so good, it was really, really good.

And that's what, uh, unfortunately on Raw Power

you don't actually hear the bass that much

but it was there, it was good.

The band from late 1971

when we were signed with Main Man

to early '72 or whenever we went to London and began

working with them, to early '73

when they publically dropped us

but privately told me that I was suspended

for moral turpitude

and embarrassing their company

they consistently refused

to allow us to play a gig.

And we were... we were popular enough

that we could have gone out and earned most of our bacon.

They wouldn't let us play.

The situation brought out our old weaknesses

and we were told

that we were gonna go live in Hollywood

in this firm Main Man house there.

And it was oil and water

James Williamson behaved badly

Iggy Pop behaved badly

Scott Asheton just looked at the floor

and let it roll

and Ron Asheton was embittered

and powerless and threw up his hands

and the group drifted into drugs.

Again, this embarrassed these people.

Defries came through town one day in a limo.

I think he was gonna talk to me about something

they could do with me that didn't involve these guys

that would

put a positive spin

on his investment with me.

And he got me into his limo and he said, "James..

"...I want to tell you what we're going to do.

"We're going to take you to New York

"to Broadway

and you're going to be Peter Pan."

* If I'm pleased with myself *

* I have every good reason to be **

And I, with deep sincerity

an-and I mean this.

I said, "No, no, no, Tony.

"I've gotta be Manson.

We've gotta make a movie."

He dropped me off and it was

just a couple days after that

that the rest of us got thrown out of the house.

The brothers moved back to Detroit.

Later on, Iggy and I

decided we would

give it another whirl.

And so we, uh, we created

what later became "Kill City."

We lucked out, we-we had a friend, Jimmy Webb

he had a studio in his house.

It was funny, I mean, you know, you'd have guys like

Art Garfunkel come in to the session

he'd listen to play backs

and then they would just leave, you know?

And without anybody, any takers for the album

we-we, we just called it quits.

Jim went off with Bowie to Europe...

...and I went to work for a recording studio

but I, um, quickly realized that there's only one thing

worse than playing in a band you don't like

and that's recording five or ten bands every day

that you can't stand.

So, I-I really wasn't very cut out for that

but I did learn a lot, and it stimulated, uh

an interest in electronics, and at that time

it was the very, very beginning of the personal computer

and so I went off and I learned

how to do all that stuff.

I'll tell ya, uh, when I was

uh, studying engineering

to go from "The Stooges" to calculus

was a huge existential gap.

So I went and moved to the Silicon Valley

and started working in the electronics industry

so, and I've been there ever since, I mean, that's been

uh, 27 year career.

After "The Stooges" collapsed

Ron first joined "New Order"

and then he did "Destroy All Monsters" with Niagara.

I played five years in the "Sonic Rendezvous Band"

with Fred Smith, and, um..

He married Patty Smith.

And once he did that was the end of the band.

Went on another five years

playing with Scott Morgan without Fred

making $30, $40 a night.

Three sets a night.

I'd have day jobs.

Warehousing

landscaping

for two years I drove a taxi cab.

Just crummy jobs.

I think that "The Stooges"

reinvented music as we know it.

If I say that "The Stooges" music is-is point zero

The "Ramones," who were a great love of mine

after that

knew each other not because they liked each other

because they were the only four people

at their school who liked "The Stooges."

* I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm *

* I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb *

* I am a world's forgotten boy *

* The one who searches and destroys **

Do you feel you've influenced anybody in the..

I think I helped wipe out the sixties

You'll get one number and one number only

because I'm a lazy bastard.

This is "No Fun."

* No fun my babe *

* No fun *

* No fun my babe *

* No fun *

* ...want to be alone *

* I'm out here by myself *

* I don't want to be alone *

* In love *

* Nobody else *

It's-it's Dionysiac.

If you know the difference between Dionysiac

and Appolonian art.

* Now I want to be your dog *

* Now I want to be your dog *

* Come on *

* Yeah I do mean you

* She got TV eye on me *

There was a movie "Velvet Goldmine",

in which one of the dudes is a composite of

Ig and they wanted like some kind of

music coming from somebody called "The Rats."

They put Steve Shelley out

because he's from Midland, Michigan

to go with Ronny and he'd write songs

and he comes to New York

and we get to record with him, yeah.

And here I got to sit across and Thrust, too, you know.

There's the guy doing the "TV Eye"

we could see his hands and play along.

It was a trip.

Uh, I got sick

when I was, uh, 42

and it almost killed me, this infection.

They had to put tubes in me

and I couldn't work bass, so it was the first time

I stopped since I was thirteen and when I came back

I was all atrophied and really lame.

I thought you were not supposed to lose that kinda stuff.

So I panicked and then started doing

Stooges songs to get strong

and I put together some bands just to do this.

There's not chord changes but it's a lot about the feel.

So, "Little Doll," "Little Doll"

"Little Doll," "Little Doll."

On the West Coast I did one with Perk and Peter

from "Porno for Pyros," and on the East

I did it with J and Murph from Dinosaur.

Well J gets his solo album

and he asks me to tour.

He says, "Man, it's hard for me to sing every song every night

"so why don't you do some Stooges

like we did with those gigs."

And when we come through Ann Arbor, he says

"You know Ronny" because of the..

Now I got his, uh, phone number.

I call him and he comes to the Blind Pig

and he jams Stooges with us.

So J says, "Come on tour!

"First two thirds will be mine, and then

the last third we'll do Stooges."

Then 2002 comes and, uh..

Thurston is curating a All Tomorrow Party

at UCLA and he says

"Why don't we get Scotty?" You know.

He was living in his truck.

And so rent him a drum set and he comes

so me and J are playing with both Asheton brothers

and we do some gigs in Europe...

...and that's where I think Ig heard about it.

It was time for me to record again

and, um..

I'd run out of things to say.

And my record label had, um...

...run out of patience with, uh

my middling sales

on the last couple of albums.

To pre-empt, uh, being produced

which was, is, was the kiss of death to me

I offered to do a-a guest..

A guest star album.

I started listing everything

everybody I thought of who was cool

and then I realized none of them are any as cool

as "The Stooges."

Sometimes just a, a hop or two in front of me

playing with J. Masci from Dinosaur Jr.

I got a phone call oneday from Ron Asheton...

...and he was saying, "Well, we're playing

this thing with J. Mascis."

J. Mascis

pulled the whole thing together.

J. Mascis.

Then we did the Asheton, Asheton

Mascis Watt thing

which Jim got ear of

cause people wanted to hear those songs

and we were playing the old Stooge songs

and getting good reviews

so that sparked Jim...

...to want to get the band back together.

I gave Ron a call, I still knew the phone number was the same

at his home from, uh, 1966

and, uh, he said "Yeah! I'll do it."

I remember going to my mom's house

Ronny was there

and, uh, my mom's, you know

I walk in and she's going

"Guess who just called?"

And I'm like, she goes "Iggy."

And she was so excited, you know

cause she was like..

Thought it was the coolest thing that Iggy called

and the band's getting back together.

So in a weird way, it was the cats Don Fleming and Jimbo

Dunbar who asked Ronny, I mean, this is my guess

to do that "Velvet Goldmine" that kinda started

the whole ball rolling.

And then that sickness in a weird way

and J saying "Come on aboard."

He had... somehow, you know, I don't know exactly

but I think this was the dynamic that led to the...

...2003 Coachella.

Before we left the st-left the studio

we got a call from Coachella

and they offered us a show.

To be honest

at what would be a good price

for a Iggy Pop show, but, um..

If I was gonna work with "The Stooges"

we're communists! We split all the money.

So I had, uh, only way I could do it was say

"Well, you'd have to give us

three times that," and I thought they'd go away

and they came back and said "Okay."

Woo!

Ah!

Everybody!

Now look out!

When the band got back together

I was so happy.

It was a dream come true, it was just..

Oh, my God, finally!

I'm back with the band.

I could tell that they really enjoyed

playing with each other, I could really tell

that they were glad to be doing this

even with all those years in between.

Yeah!

* I'm so messed up I want you here *

* In my room *

* I want you here *

Certain parts of history

have repeated themselves

both in the history of this

reunification of our group

which, I prefer to call it that rather than a reunion

and one thing that

happened was, uh, you know, we..

We did a substantial period with

with Ron doing the guitar.

* Now I wanna be your dog *

* Well come on *

The last time I saw him was, uh, after the show.

I opened the door

and-and he and Scotty were sitting in profile

at the end of the room and they were surrounded

by young Slovenian musicians.

So I just saw that they were busy

and, um, split.

I last saw him in profile.

He popped up in my dreams

a few times since then...

...and he never spoke or looked at me.

It was always sort of

more something like, uh... you know.

The guy in "The Third Man" or

the guy in "The French Connection"

always walking by

and you can't quite catch him.

He was a lot like that.

When he passed away

it coincided with James

retirement as a Sony Executive

and...

...he wanted to rock

and...

...I was sure that there was nothing else meaningful

that the group could do other than

do his, do-do some things with him

doing his material.

And having just finally done the right thing

thirty years, thirty-five years later

with Ron's material

to do the same thing for his and complete the job.

Iggy's talking to me about, "Well, you wanna play guitar?"

and I'm going, "Well..

"I don't know, I mean, I haven't played guitar

in thirty years, so.."

Uh, but I, but I felt like that, uh..

And this is the truth, is I felt

like that these guys were

you know, they're my buddies

I mean, I know these guys from my twenties.

And so, they needed me, you know, to do this

and I, I felt like I needed to step up and do it.

* Raw power it's a more than soul *

* Got a son called rock and roll *

* Raw power honey just won't quit *

* Raw power I can feel it *

* Raw power honey can't be beat *

* Get down and a kiss my feet *

* Everybody's always tryin to tell me what to do *

I really had no intention

idea or wildest dream

that I would be playing, you know

guitar again for "The Stooges."

I mean, it was really the furthest thing from my mind.

They were a group of the

slightly more popular

slightly more physically aggressive

guys in my class.

And there were about four or five of them at the time.

I'd been to one or two of their homes, used to eat

French fries with them across the street from school.

So one of them had a car his dad had given him.

They came out

they did three things, one of them said

"Yeah, look, his dad drives a Cadillac

"and he lives in a trailer.

Car's bigger than his house!"

Few of 'em got together

"Let's see if it shakes."

And they started pushing it and trying to shake

the trailer on its foundations

which it would not.

Uh, but you did feel, you could feel it.

Uh, yeah, I want to be friends with these guys and, uh

I admired certain things about them.

One of them jumped in the bathtub and

made some sort of remark

about the size of the, the bathroom.

Ever since I've been out to get 'em.

Ever since, you know.

I'll bury those guys.

Uh!

We three here are the surviving Stooges.

Ron and Dave woulda gotten a big kick outta this

and, uh, Ron was pissed off

that it didn't happen while he was alive.

I don't know how he feels about it now

he's probably sitting up there in heaven

having martinis with Brian Jones

trying to flick ashes on our head.

Music is life and life is not a business.

Ron Asheton knew this

and Ron was cool.

The "MC5" are cool.

My friend, Danny, who discovered the band is cool

and Nina, my beautiful wife

you're cool!

All the poor people

who actually started

rock and roll music are cool.

Yeah!

Thank you Stooge fans!

There may be three of ya up there

and I'll bet there's a couple in the fancy seats.

So thanks for being so... cool.

Yeow!

* I'm so messed up I want you here *

* And in my room I want you here *

* And now we're gonna be face to face *

* And I'll lay right down in my favorite place *

* And now I wanna *

* Now I wanna *

* Now I wanna *

* And now I wanna be a dog *

* Now come on *

Uh! Yeah!

Come on, Ron!

Play! Play!

* I'm in fucking Detroit *

* I salute you now *

* Now I'm ready to close my eyes *

* Now I'm ready to feel your hand *

* Lose my heart on the burning sand *

Come on! Do it, Michigan!

* Now I want to be your dog *

* Now I want to be your dog *

* Now I want to be your dog *

* Well come on *

* Now.. *

I don't want to belong to the glam people

I don't want to belong to the hip, hip-hop people

I don't want to belong to the, to any of it.

I don't want to belong to the TV people...

...alternative people, none of it.

I don't want to be a punk.

I just want to be.

Synchronized and corrected from retail by H@w-to-kiLL @subscene

* Gimme danger little stranger *

* And I'll give you a piece *

* Gimme danger little stranger *

* And I'll feel your disease *

* There's nothing in my dreams *

* Just some ugly memories *

* Kiss me like the ocean breeze *

Hey!

* Now if you will be my lover *

* I will shiver insane *

* But if you can be my master *

* I will do anything *

* There's nothing left to life *

* But a pair glassy eyes *

* Raze my feelings one more time **

* Alright *

* Well it's 1969 okay *

* All across the USA *

* It's another year for me and you *

* Another year with nothing to do *

* It's another year for me and you *

* Another year with nothing to do *

* Now last year I was 21 *

* I didn't have a lot of fun *

* And now I'm gonna be 22 *

* I say oh my and a boo-hoo *

* And now I'm going to be 22 *

* Oh my and a boo-hoo *

* Well it's 1969 okay *

* All across the USA *

* It's another year for me and you *

* Another year with nothing to do *

* It's 1969 *

* It's 1969 *

* It's 1969 baby *

* It's 1969 baby-y-y *

* Baby *